Identifying the Effective Factors of Strategic Alignment of Marketing with Information Technology (IT) in Organizations

Abstract

Strategic alignment of marketing and information technology is one of the managers’ priorities in recent years, that should be considered in order to achieve optimal performance in the field of digital marketing. Applying information technology in a proper way, in line with marketing strategies, to meet marketing needs is the main emphasis of strategic alignment between marketing and information technology. Despite the growth of investment in marketing technologies and the necessity of strategic alignment in this field, the literature on identifying the effective factors for strategic alignment of marketing and information technology has not been addressed yet. Therefore, the main purpose of the current research is to identify the effectiveness in strategic alignment of marketing and information technology in organizations hoping to improve the efficiency of IT investments in marketing. The research is conducted in two stages applying a mixed approach. In the first stage, qualitative approach and semi-structured interview tools are used to identify and extract the factors from the experts’ perspectives. In the second step, quantitative approach and BWM technique are used to weight and prioritize the identified factors. The statistical population of this study includes all academic experts in the field of research and senior executives with experience in marketing and information technology in organizations with digital marketing who were selected by purposeful sampling. The findings of the study include 7 factors of support and support of senior marketing manager, IT capabilities, partnerships / communications, governance, marketing competencies, skills / manpower and competitive factors, of which partnership / communication has the most weight and importance and competitive / environmental factors with the least weight were the least important.

Keywords

• strategic alignment
• strategic alignment of marketing with information technology
• best-worst technique